


Bring Him Home

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clint Needs a Hug, F/M, Post-Avengers, Post-BOTNY, Pre-Age of Ultron, age of ultron spoilers (minor), non-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3885079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loki, Clint is certain that this will be the thing Laura can't forgive. Also, how they met, fell in love, fell apart, and found a home together. Minor AOU spoilers, as in Laura exists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Him Home

**Author's Note:**

> So I got a little giddy over the idea that Clint might've found happiness. It makes me happy. So Phil and Nat are BFFs, but this is Clint and Laura's story. One of many, I presume.

“We need to get him home.”

“He can’t go home yet, Phil. Not yet.”

“Laura can help. She needs to be part of his recovery.”

“He can’t go home yet, and she can’t come here. No one can know about her.”

“Nick.”

“Phil. Natasha. You both know I love Laura and that family like my own. I want what you want, but we just _can’t_. The WSC loses sight of where he is now and they’ll go digging. She comes here and someone else will go digging. It’s not safe.”

Laura. Her name cut through the fever-haze in Clint’s brain as he lay there in a SHIELD medical room listening to his friends talk about him. Laura who will look at him with sad eyes and see everything he’d done. She’d always been able to see him like no one else, from the first day they met.

***

The bar looked like a dive bar. It was in a tall, narrow brick building, squeezed between two bigger brick buildings on the block, and they all looked like they might fall over if someone pushed the right brick. Even the sign for Lily’s Bar was crumbling, and the red letters had faded to pink. Clint drew his brown bomber jacket closer to his chest and took a deep breath. He wanted to rest. Just for an hour or so. He’d lost the tail chasing him two days ago and had been vigilant since. He was sure no one was following anymore. He needed to lay low for a few days and then head back into Chicago to one of his more dependable contacts. They’d have a new job waiting, he was sure.

For now he just wanted a drink.

He stepped through the door and drew a breath of surprise. The bar was clean, with wood floors stretching deep into the building, creating a bit of a shoebox effect – it was a long, thin room. It had old western-style lamps hanging every few feet, and small dark wood round tables under each lamp. The oak bar was shiny and had tall backed chairs,

There was a good crowd in the bar, people who looked like they worked hard for a living and knew how to have a good time when they could. The tables were full, and the bar had spaces for about fifteen people and most of those chairs there were taken, too. There was 80s rock playing and a few people were smoking. Clint saw a chair at the very back end of the bar and settled into it, checked out the sight lines, and relaxed a fraction. That's when he looked at the bartender.

She caught his eye right away with an easy smile.

She was beautiful. She had dark black hair cut to her shoulders and curled loosely, and her face was thin and friendly, with a sharp jaw and a mouth that looked like a starlet’s. She smiled like she had known Clint for years, and her green eyes looked like they were a pool of safety. He shook himself a little because when he saw her he wanted to know her, and it was suddenly all he wanted in the world.

She looked to be about his age, twenty-five, or close at least, she leaned easily on the bar in front of him and her eyes danced. "Hey there,” she said. “What's your poison?"

He might've stared a moment too long because then she laughed, and it felt like he had electricity simmering in his chest.

 

***

"I'll call Laura," Natasha said quietly. "I'll explain. She'll understand."

She didn't bother to leave the room, just sat on the edge of Clint's bed and pulled out her cell phone.

"Nat," he whispered, and his throat felt scratchy and raw. He wanted to reach for the phone, but his body was a lead weight after three days of hell. Blue hell, fear, drowning, emptiness, and Loki's voice echoing in his head ordering him to kill, to take his own people, to become a monster in his service, and, oh god, he'd complied. He'd done it. He felt desperation claw at his throat and he heard the monitor spike as he tried again to reach for Natasha.

"Don't," he groaned. "Please don't tell her. Nat, please don't tell her what I did."

Nat leaned over and brushed sweaty hair out of his eyes, "Shh. She needs to know why you can't come home. I won't tell her everything. Clint," she said, and he heard sadness seeping through her voice. "Rest. Just rest. Please, Clint. Lay still."

"Just don't tell her," he whispered as he lay back again. He closed his eyes against the look on Natasha’s face. "Please."

***

Clint went back to the bar the next day and there weren’t as many people in the place, but Laura was working again.

 

(“Can I get your name?” he’d asked just before he left the day before. “If I can have yours,” she’d laughed, and he’d said, “Clint,” without even thinking. He kicked himself later that night over giving his real name, but as he thought about her, he knew he couldn’t have done anything else.)

She looked tired today, and her smile wasn’t as quick to show up when Clint parked himself at the bar in the same seat he had yesterday. He liked the sightlines. She wandered over to him in her faded jeans and Ramones t-shirt and asked if he wanted the same beer as yesterday, and he’d just nodded with a small smile. When she brought it over to him, she paused before leaving him alone, like she wanted to say something.

“What?” he asked with a laugh.

She shrugged and cocked her head. “I get off earlier today. I was just wondering if I could join you for a bit when I’m done.”

He couldn’t keep a flat-out stupid grin off his face as he nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He wasn’t afraid to talk to people. He’d been working as an assassin for seven years now, and he knew how to get close to a mark. You couldn’t be shy if seduction was the only way to get someone alone. He hadn’t done it often, but he’d done it, and he could talk to people.

Talking to Laura was different.

The lies about his current job came easily enough – travels with a specialty construction company – but the backstory he gave her? Well, he ended up telling her more truths than he’d ever told anyone before, even Natasha. He’d never told Natasha about the foster homes, or about dropping out of school not because he was moving around too much but because he couldn’t make letters stay still on a page and he couldn’t do math the way anyone wanted him to (he could do it – all of it – just not how they wanted).

Laura asked one question and answers spilled from his lips like marbles tumbling out of a cloth bag.

She told him things, too. About growing up in a typical middle class house with parents who expected her to go to college and get married, not to quit high school to hitchhike with a boyfriend out to San Diego and wait tables and go to Bartending School while they surfed in their spare time. She told him with a bitter voice how she left the asshole boyfriend in California when he started hitting her and worked her way back to Chicago to her parents’ house and how they slammed the front door in her face when she got there.

They sat at the bar for three hours after she got off of work, and neither one of them got drunk. They shared some food and nursed a couple of beers, but they mostly talked. Clint kept thinking that he was so screwed and he needed to get up and walk away because what kind of assassin makes any sort of attachment? That was begging for trouble and putting Laura in danger.

He kept talking.

He asked if he could walk her home or to the El station and she laughed and said ‘no thanks.’ He asked if she was working tomorrow and she said it was her day off but if he wanted to meet her for lunch she knew a really good taco place a few blocks away. He nodded eagerly and the next day they spent two hours at the taco place and then an hour kissing on a park bench in the back corner of a park.

Clint was definitely screwed.

*** 

“Laura? It’s Nat.”

Clint listened as he breathed through a wave of pain from his back where he’d riddled himself with glass from the window during the battle. Nat looked at him sharply, but her voice was calm as she spoke to Clint’s wife.

“He’s safe, okay?” she said, and Clint just wished she’d hang up at that. Leave it there. She didn’t.

“He suffered a few minor injuries from the battle.” She paused and nodded. “Phil and I are okay, although don’t ask about the black eye Phil has if you see him sometime soon. He deserved it and then some.”

Clint swallowed the bile that rose at the memory of Natasha telling him that Phil had died in the battle. At the way the floor had fallen from beneath his feet at the thought of one of his closest friends dying thanks to what Clint did. He had enough blood on his hands. If he hadn’t been busy passing out from exhaustion when Phil revealed himself at headquarters later that night he might’ve hit him, too. But he’d been a crumpled sack on the floor at that moment, so he missed his chance.

“He’s in bad shape, though,” he heard Nat intone darkly. “He went through some bad shit over the last four days, okay? I can’t tell you about it here, but it’s enough that we can’t bring him to you yet.” She stopped, and Clint thought he actually heard Laura _yelling_ over the phone. Nat had the decency to look pained.

“I know. I know. There’s some politics involved, though. We need to keep him here for his safety and for yours. Yes. Yours, too. No. We can’t bring you here either. We have to wait, Laura.” She paused and looked down at Clint. “Just a minute,” she said, and then she leaned over him. “Clint, will you talk to her?” she asked.

Clint’s heart raced and panic rose again. “No. Nat, I can’t tell her. I can’t.”

Natasha looked puzzled and then nodded. “Just tell her you’re okay. Just reassure her, Clint. She needs to hear your voice.”

Sweat beaded on his forehead and he swallowed thickly. He couldn’t breathe properly. “No. No. No. I can’t. I can’t.” He had never lied to Laura since the first time he said he worked construction. He couldn’t start lying now.

***

He had to go to the city and get another job, or contacts would start getting suspicious and come looking for him. He told Laura he had to leave town for a week or two, and he did a job in Madrid. He came back tan and told her he’d been in Florida, and she pouted because he didn’t bring her a plastic flamingo.

They went out the night he got back, talking for hours again, and Clint marveled at how her eyes held so many ways to make him feel safe. That scared him, so he left town again the next day because all he wanted to do was sit somewhere and _be_ with her. He didn’t care what they did. When he got back this time he brought her a snow globe of the Liberty Bell and she laughed until tears leapt to her eyes.

He wanted to bottle the sound.

They went for walks before her shift at the bar, had breakfast together a couple of times, and he learned that she was about to graduate from college.

“You’re going to college?” he’d asked, and he felt the age-old insecurity about school creep back into his chest.

“I got my GED out in California,” she answered as she held his hand and rubbed it gently. “I’ve been going to school here on my off hours for five years for graphic design.”

For some reason he felt proud of her.

Then Laura invited him over to her place for dinner. She said, “My grandmother taught me how to be a pretty good cook, if you don’t mind Italian food most of the time,” and her eyes slipped to the side as she was talking, and Clint could tell that the memories were good ones. He stupidly agreed to come.

She fixed a lasagna that forced ridiculous noises out of Clint’s mouth and he blushed at least twice. Being on the run most of the time didn’t lead to good eating. They sat in her tiny, run-down apartment kitchenette at a Formica table and drank wine slowly as they talked about dreams of the future.

“Do you like your job?” she asked after he told a ‘story’ about a boss of his. Her eyes were bright and curious.

He shrugged, and meant to play it off, but it really was as if she had some secret power of making him tell the truth. “No. But I don’t even have a GED, and this job lets me travel and pays pretty good, and I don’t even know what else I’d do, you know?”

She smiled and brushed her hair behind her ears. “I want to work from home and live in a farm house someday. I hope to work for non-profits, doing design work but not feeling like a corporate hack. My dad was a corporate hack and he turned into a jerk.”

Clint leaned forward and brushed the hair that kept falling into her face away. “I can’t imagine you being a hack. Or a jerk.” His hand brushed her cheek and she sucked in a quick breath and caught his hand in hers.

“Clint,” she whispered, and the room spun a little at the sound of her voice saying his name like a prayer. He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips and she tasted of sweet wine. The kiss was heady and quick, but she pulled him close and held his face so she could stare into his eyes. “I’m not sure what’s going on with us, but I really, really like it,” she whispered.

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face – the ridiculous smile that he never knew he had until he met her– and she laughed when he did it and leaned in to kiss him again. When he felt that kiss all the way down to his toes, he stood up and pulled her into his arms. He loved how she fit against him perfectly, he loved the press of her body against his and the way she gently pulled her fingers through his hair. He loved the way she stole his breath away.

***

Nat hung up the phone and leaned over, brushing his cheek gently. “You’re safe, shhh. She’s not angry, Clint. She’s not.” She paused and added, “I think she’s scared, but she’ll be okay.”

He didn’t want to scare her. He knew he scared her with a few of his serious injuries over the years, but he hated the thought of fear in her eyes. It didn’t belong there. He felt his own fear threaten to overtake him, and Phil must have seen it in his face.

He sat down next to Nat and pulled Clint’s hand into his. “It’s going to be alright, Clint. Nick is talking to the WSC right now and trying to convince them that you need to go into a safe house situation. It’ll take some work, because right now they want you where they can see you, but he’s working on it, okay? Rest. Get some sleep and by the time you wake up we’ll know more. We’re trying to get you home, okay?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nat nod to the nurse about something, and before he could protest to Phil that he didn’t want to go home, that he couldn’t face Laura and the kids now, like this, he felt the cool flush of a sedative in his arm and his eyelids fluttered and he sunk into sleep.

***

“I’m pregnant, Clint,” Laura said one morning over breakfast at her kitchen table, and she said it like she was talking about the weather.

Clint choked on his coffee. “We used protection,” he protested.

She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t always work, you know,” she said as if he were being completely stupid.

He knew. Of course he knew, but they’d been really careful. They’d both insisted. Laura was finishing her post-grad internship at a Chicago literacy group and had been trying to convince Clint to move in with her. They’d been dating a year, and he’d managed to keep the nature of his job hidden. He’d come home with bruises and lacerations a time or two, but he wrote it off as the danger of construction work, and she’d bought it. They never got to spend as much time together as either wanted, and every month or so he’d work himself up to breaking up with her because of the danger, but he could never do it.

She made him feel so goddamned good.

Now there was nausea building in his stomach, and he put his cup down before it shook out of his hand. Pregnant. He couldn’t. He couldn’t be a father. There were so many reasons he couldn’t be a father, _so many_. He couldn’t control his face, and it must’ve been bad because she crossed her arms and frowned deeply.

“What are you thinking?” she asked softly, but her voice was hard and thin.

He stared at his plate for a moment and then looked up. “I can’t be a father,” he said, and he couldn’t get his voice to rise above a whisper. “I can’t, Laura.”

“I want to keep it,” she said, and she looked away. “I want you to be part of this. I don’t believe you about being a father. I think you’ll be a wonderful father. I know this isn’t what we wanted, Clint, and I’m sorry it happened now, but we’re –“ her voice broke and she looked at him again, this time with a small smile on her face. “We’re good together. We work. We feel right, okay? Maybe you could find a company that doesn’t require the travel. Maybe your current company could give you a good recommendation. We could make this work, Clint,” she implored.

He took a deep, shaky breath. He was an assassin. Assassins couldn’t be parents, and while he was very good at hiding his trail for a few days or weeks at a time, he couldn’t hide a family. He couldn’t risk a baby. He stood up. “I can’t. I can – I can take care of you. I have money. I have a _lot_ of money. I’ll make sure you get a better place to live, and I’ll make sure you have enough money to take care of the baby, but I can’t, Laura. I just… can’t.” His voice had dropped to a whisper, and she looked at him like he’d cut her with a knife.

“Clint,” she said, and for some reason his name in her mouth was too much. That was it.

He turned and grabbed his coat and duffel bag from the foyer and clutched it to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But I can’t be a father.” He left her apartment and practically ran to the train station. He bought a ticket for Boston and climbed on a train and he shoved his hands deep in his jeans pockets as he let the sound of the train on the rails numb him, and he stared out the window.

When he got to Boston, he found a coffee shop and wrote a short letter explaining that he’d send her money every month. Enough for rent and food, and anything else she needed, and he tried to write about how sorry he was, but the words wouldn’t come. He just ended it with, “I will always love you, and I’m sorry for hurting you.” He bought an oversized envelope and tucked two thousand dollars inside. He knew it was risky, but in his line of business a checking account in his real name (that he had given her from the beginning, dammit) was impossible, and besides, she was more likely to accept it and use it if he sent cash. He’d risk it.

He did that every month for seven months, and always mailed it from a different city. He ended every letter with, “I will always love you, and I’m sorry for hurting you.”

Seven months later, though, he found himself on the wrong end of a bullet and bleeding out in an alley in Prague, feeling weak and cold and shaking like he was about to break apart. He didn’t have any backup and he figured this was it. He was done. He pulled the burner phone out of his pocket and dialed with trembling fingers.

He sucked in heavy breaths as the call connected, and when she picked it up with a hesitant, “hello?” he closed his eyes.

“Laura?” he said, and he knew his voice was wrong.

“Clint?” she replied, and he listened for the click of her hanging up, but it didn’t come. “Are you hurt?”

She knew so much about reading him, it was like another bullet hit him when he heard her ask. He tried to keep his voice even as he answered her. “I need you to listen. There’s a safety deposit box in the First Bank of Chicago downtown, okay? You have a piece a paper? Get a piece of paper,” he said, and he knew he sounded desperate.

“Clint, what’s going on?” she said, and he heard her fear.

“Write this number down. It’s the access code and they have your name. Take an ID and the code and you can take everything. Write this down,” he urged, and took her silence for agreement. He gave her the number and then added, “I’m so sorry. I want to be there. I want to be a father for our baby. I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and any strength he had flooded out of him and the phone sagged in his hand.

“Clint,” she said, but he was out of energy. “Clint! Please talk to me. Please tell me what’s happening.”

He closed his eyes to the sound of her pleas, and the phone dropped into a puddle of water pooled next to him.

When he woke in a hospital, and Natasha was sitting next to him frowning, he wondered if miracles were real.

***

“You look a little better,” Phil said as he sipped a cup of coffee and watched Clint wake up.

Clint couldn’t feel the burning in his back anymore, and his head didn’t feel nearly as fuzzy. He took a steady breath and nodded. “How long did I sleep?”

Phil smiled. “About eighteen hours.” He paused and helped Clint raise the bed and get a drink of ice water. “You needed it desperately.” His eyes were filled with concern, and it made Clint feel warmer than he had in days.

“Laura?” he asked quietly.

“Nat and I have both talked to her every few hours.” Phil said. “She’s no less angry at me.”

“Why you?” Clint asked.

“Nat told her it was my fault you couldn’t come home. I suppose I deserve some flack, so I’m handling it.”

Clint swallowed thickly and closed his eyes. The room was still spinning a little.

“Clint,” Phil said, and he used his handler voice, which made Clint open his eyes on instinct. “The doctors did an MRI and CT scan while you were out. They’ve cleared you for leaving on a few conditions.”

“Like what?” Clint asked, but his stomach was tightening. If he was cleared, he’d need to go home to Laura and the kids. He wanted to see them desperately, but he’d never been more afraid of seeing Laura.

“Like a blood test in five days, another set of scans in a week, and therapy sessions once a day indefinitely.”

“Then I can’t go home. The therapy requirement,” Clint said, and tried not to sound as confused as he felt about that fact.

“You can. I’ve arranged for the therapist to work with you over Skype. It’s not ideal, but as long as Laura is in on a couple initial sess-“

“No.”

Phil blinked and cocked his head. “Only so she can know how to help you through panic attacks if they come and a few things to watch for. She doesn’t have to be there when you get into the tough stuff, Clint.”

He fisted the blanket in his lap and stared at his hands. “I can’t – I can’t tell her about him,” he whispered.

Phil moved to his bedside and put a hand on his cheek. It was warm and comfortable and safe and Clint leaned into the touch. No one had touched him in a week except to hit him. “Clint,” he said gently. “She’s going to understand. Just like I do and Natasha does and Nick does and your team does. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was Loki and magic and you’ve got to let Laura in. You don’t have to tell her everything. I get that,” he said, and his voice hardened. “But you need to let everyone who loves you help, and she loves you more than anyone in the world. I swear she’s gonna jump through the phone line one of these calls and be here out of sheer will.”

Phil sat back and pulled Clint’s hand into his. “Nick said he has one more meeting with the WSC and he thinks he’s got them convinced that disappearing you for a bit will be good. The meeting is in an hour and then we’ll know.”

He rubbed Clint’s hand and got him another drink of water, and Clint leaned back and closed his eyes again, and slept some more.

***

Nat got him out of the hospital a few days after surgery on his leg, and kept him safe while he was there. They always kept an eye out for each other, but he hadn’t seen her in over a year. She admitted she’d been watching him when he left Chicago.

“You were spending too much time in one place,” she admonished.

“I stopped,” he countered darkly. “Seven months I’ve been out of the state entirely.”

“Yeah,” she said as they boarded a plane back to the US. “Why is that, exactly? You ran from that woman. You don’t run from anyone.” She left out the part that he’d run _after_ Nat when she’d left him three years ago. It was good of her to keep that out of the conversation. He wasn’t terribly proud.

Clint set his crutches on the floor of the plane and leaned back in his chair. “I’m going back.”

Natasha merely raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t stay away from her, Nat. I tried, but I can’t. She’s –“ he hesitated, but then figured that of all the people in the world who’d never use it against him, Natasha was it. “She’s seven months pregnant. I was gonna stay away, but I can’t. I’ll just have to be even more careful than usual.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered.

He shrugged. “Maybe. But maybe you could help me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because beneath your gruff, you love me. You left me and don’t need me, but you love me.” He grinned at her and she huffed, but then she smiled, too.

“You’re gonna be a dad?” she asked, and shook her head. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“Well,” he sighed as he rubbed his thigh. “I might have screwed the whole thing up, but I’m gonna try.”

He and Natasha worked through the flight on mapping out safe houses for Clint and his family and plans for check-ins when he was on a job, and ways they could work through the money laundering issue. This was all, of course, dependent on Laura’s reaction, but when he limped off the plane in Chicago, he felt like he had everything in place to try. He and Nat got a hotel near Laura’s place, and Nat gave him a hug and a punch as he left to go make his case.

He sucked in a deep breath and knocked on Laura’s door. He held his breath until she opened it, and then the air left his lungs in a woosh as he saw her standing there. She was dressed in loose sweats and a forest green oversized sweatshirt, but he could see her 8-month belly, and when he met her damp green eyes he saw that she’d gained a little weight in the face. Pregnancy looked amazing on her. Her hand went to her mouth when she saw him, and she stepped back right away to let him in.

He pushed himself through on his crutches and shut the door behind him as she sunk into her couch and tried to hold in the sobs wracking her frame. He sat down next to her and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I won’t disappear again. If you’ll have me I won’t _ever_ disappear again. I’m sorry.”

She cried for a minute, but then pulled herself together long enough to mutter, “Fucking hormones,” before she leaned back and smacked his arm, hard. “You bastard. I thought you’d died on me.” She wiped her eyes with her hand, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “Fuck.”

He cupped her cheek and felt a warm spark in his chest when she didn’t pull away. “If it makes you feel any better, I thought I’d died on you, too. It didn’t take.”

She looked at his leg and then back at him. “You’re not a construction worker, are you?” she said, and then she pulled away from him a bit.

He shook his head. “No. I –“ the words wouldn’t come. He wanted to tell her everything, but the words wouldn’t come. He closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest. “I’ve been a contract assassin since I was seventeen years old,” he whispered. “I try real hard not to take jobs on good people, but I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life, Laura. I’m not a good person and I won’t blame you if you tell me to walk out that door and never come back.” He raised his head to look at her, and her eyes were narrow and hard.

He rubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t have any other skill set. It’s also the only thing I’ve ever lied to you about. Everything I told you about me is true except my job. I’ll never lie to you about anything ever again, I promise, and if you’ll hear me out, I think I have a plan for how to keep you and the baby safe and cared for if you’ll let me stay around.”

She looked at him with piercing eyes for a long, wordless moment, and then a funny look came over her face and she reached out for Clint’s hand. She took it and placed it on her belly, and he gave a startled yelp when he felt the baby kick his hand, hard. He stopped breathing and stared at her belly until he got kicked again, and then he couldn’t help it.

He laughed.

***

When he woke next, Phil and Natasha and Nick were all there, talking quietly. Nick spotted him first, and leaned on the railing of his bed and looked at him carefully. “You ready to go home?” he asked quietly.

Clint wanted to go home and he didn’t want to go home and he was tired and achy and scared and shaking already at the very thought of stepping through his front door. He licked his dry, cracked lips and nodded. “I guess so.”

Later, Natasha was busy filing a fake flight manifest for the jet, and Phil was helping him get dressed when the first panic attack hit. He was putting his boots on when Loki’s voice echoed in his head, _an ant has no quarrel with a boot,_ and he was back at the Pegasus facility with a scepter pressed to his chest. He clawed at it, tried to knock it away, and was gulping for air so he could run.

“Clint. Clint. Look at me.” It was Phil’s voice. Phil who’d been stabbed but who hadn’t, who died but then didn’t, his close friend who loved him and could’ve been killed because of Clint’s weakness. Clint tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come, and strong hands cupped his cheek. “Clint!”

Clint blinked and saw Phil sitting in front of him. He nodded and tried to slow down his breaths. Phil commanded Clint to breathe with him, so he did and finally his heart slowed down and the room came back to clarity and Clint felt limp and cold. Phil still held him up, and he looked over his shoulder at the doctor who was waiting.

She stepped forward carefully, telegraphing every movement, and checked Clint’s pulse. She checked his eyes and asked him a few questions. Finally she stepped back and crouched in front of him. “Clint,” she said, “You may end up with these panic attacks for a while. Breathing through them is important, and resting afterward as well. Your sugar is likely to drop with these, so keep fruit juice around if you can. I’m going to get you a bottle to take with you now, and it really will help if you’ve got someone around to help you for a while. Okay?”

He nodded, and just leaned into Phil’s shoulder until Dr. Weber brought him a bottle of orange juice and he gulped it greedily as Phil crouched down and laced his boots for him.

“I’m going home a mess, Phil. A fucking basket case mess,” he complained.

“I know,” Phil answered, and Clint was grateful he didn’t try to deny it. “And I know you’re not sure you want to go home yet. But it’s safer for you there. Nick and I were talking earlier and he’s already had to throw a couple guys in the brig for threatening you. We’re not sure they’d actually do it, but it’s best that we don’t take a chance.”

That brought Clint up short. Fellow SHIELD people threatening him. It made sense. He’d been responsible for the death of seventy-two agents. He doubted all the threats would be idle. He quietly followed Phil to the jet after that, and Natasha was waiting for them. She handed Clint a bottle of water and helped him buckle in when she saw how badly his hands were shaking. She pressed a kiss to his sweaty forehead and went to the front to pilot him home.

***

Cooper Francis Barton was born a month after Clint confessed his job, and Clint felt his entire world shift a fraction. They’d moved to a small town outside of Chicago and had a small house on a quiet street. They’d agreed to stay there for a year if things stayed safe, and then they’d move. Laura had agreed to all of the safety measures Clint and Nat had put together, which included frequent moves for the family. Clint tried to take just one job a month to keep the business off his back – it wasn’t an easy job to walk away from - and put the money away, so they used Laura’s income as a graphic designer (she worked from home and freelanced, which let them move around). Clint lived in a house and changed diapers and woke every three hours to feed Cooper and rock him back to sleep the songs of Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell and Simon and Garfunkel.

 

He felt a tired he’d never felt before, deep in his bones, and it was amazing. Every time he looked at Cooper’s tiny little face before he left on a job, he sighed wistfully and wished he could be a normal guy.

Laura had asked a lot of questions after she found out Clint’s occupation, and she had a few bouts of doubting whether this was a good idea, and then one day Clint came home from a two-week job to find the locks changed.

He stood there pounding on the door until she finally squeezed herself through and stood on the front step trembling. “I can’t. You’re doing this dangerous work and the cops are going to catch you and I’m going to go to jail and Clint, what’s going to happen to our son? The same thing that happened to you? I can’t let that happen!” Her voice was shaky and Clint couldn’t stop the tears streaming down his own face, but he nodded.

“Okay,” he whispered. He’d promised her he would leave if she wanted, but that was before Cooper was born. Now it felt like his heart was getting torn from his chest. But he got it. He really did. Taking the chance that Cooper could end up in the system like him? No way. “Okay. Can I say goodbye? Please?”

She brought a bundled up Cooper outside, not letting him even into the house he’d been fixing up. He pulled his boy into his arms and buried his face in his tiny chest. He didn’t say anything, just held Cooper and rocked him one last time before he handed him back to Laura and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “You have the combination to the safe deposit. It’s all yours whenever you want it, and I’ll keep putting clean money in,” he said.

She nodded, and tears tracked down her cheeks, too.

He waved goodbye, called a contact, and took a string of jobs around the world. He was ruthless and quick and effective and if anything, his reputation got a boost. He had Nat check in on Laura and Cooper, and she helped Laura move one more time, and assured Clint that they were doing fine. He convinced Nat to get drunk with him, though, and she at least admitted that Laura was miserable and missing him, even if Cooper was growing and happy and safe.

He took more jobs and got on SHIELD’s radar. SHIELD, the agency mercs were actually afraid of, came calling in the form of Nick Fury. Fury tried twice to catch Clint, and he slipped away each time. Third time was the charm, though, and a precise hit to Clint’s leg sent him crumpling to the ground and into SHIELD custody. What he didn’t expect was the job offer.

He took it on two conditions: SHIELD cleared his record, gave him a clean, legitimate fresh start with his real name, and Nick helped him find a farm for Laura and Cooper in upstate New York.

Two years later, Lily was born, and Clint was able to do a long commute and have all his down time at home, and he felt like the luckiest guy in the universe.

***

The jet landed and Nat and Phil both led Clint down the ramp. When he set foot on his own land, the land he’d actually worked and farmed when he was home, his knees buckled. He sank to the ground and twisted his fingers in the green grass and dropped his head to his chest and sucked in a deep breath of the country air.

“Clint?” Laura’s voice called, and he looked up. She’d come out to meet them. She was wearing a flower print dress and sandals, and her hair shimmered in the dusk light. Clint saw her coming toward him and a cry escaped his chest and he pulled his knees up tight and tucked his head down. He didn’t deserve this. He needed it like air; he didn’t deserve it.

Phil read his mind, as usual. He crouched down next to Clint and put a sturdy hand on his shoulder. “You deserve to recover, Clint. You deserve to recover and find happiness again, because none of it was your fault. Let her help you, Clint. You deserve it.” Phil’s voice was gravelly and filled with vehemence.

Clint looked up at him and Phil nodded, once, and then looked over to Laura, who crouched down on his other side and put her hands on his cheeks. “Clint,” she whispered. “You’re home.”

And he was. He tipped into her embrace and let her hold him and stroke his hair while he trembled and whispered the truth to her again, “I killed so many people. I didn’t mean to, but I killed so many people, Laura.”

And like usual, she took him in stride, and stroked his back and said, “But it’s not who you are. Look around, Clint. Look,” she insisted as she pulled his chin up and forced him to look at his house in the distance, where he could see his two gorgeous children standing on the porch steps with Natasha, waiting for him. “This is who you are,” she said, “Come inside and help me put the kids to bed and we’ll get through this. Together.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
